This overblown, overlong epic, adapted from Harold Robbins' best-selling novel that describes every corrupt person who counts in South America, wallows in human depravity. The film wanders after the life and times of a South American playboy, played by Fehmiu (a Yugoslavian actor whose
speach, annoyingly garbled, is nearly unintelligible). He destroys everything...read more

See Also

Where to Watch

Available to Stream

This overblown, overlong epic, adapted from Harold Robbins' best-selling novel that describes every corrupt person who counts in South America, wallows in human depravity. The film wanders after the life and times of a South American playboy, played by Fehmiu (a Yugoslavian actor whose

speach, annoyingly garbled, is nearly unintelligible). He destroys everything and everybody in his path, all because--and the rationale is jammed down the viewer's throat--he suffered a trauma as a child. The trauma is produced during a revolution when Fehmiu witnesses the murder of his mother by

bandits. His father, Rey, joins the revolutionaries, and once the revolutionary leader triumphs, he is appointed an ambassador and, taking Fehmiu with him, is sent to Italy. In Italy Fehnmiu grows to sleazy manhood, wooing wealthy de Havilland for her money after his father is murdered by dictator

Badel, his onetime friend. Naturally, the lover deserts the gullible matron once he has her money, and he later marries Bergen, another wealthy girl who can't say no. Her child with Fehmiu is killed in an accident, and she turns her back on heterosexual activities, avidly pursuing lesbian love.

Meanwhile, her errant husband is stirring up revolutionaries against his father's traitorous friend and trysting with any attractive female with money or power, which seems to be every good-looking woman in the mythical country of Corteguay. All find the swarthy Fehmiu irresistable and will

sacrifice anything for him, including families, friends, home, country, and self-respect. Fehmiu ultimately avenges his father's murder by killing the dictator but is also killed by another emerging political fanatic. Blood, gore, and sleaze dominate this seemingly unending saga of the seamy side

of South America, which is just the way mogul Joseph E. Levine imagined it. Director Lewis Gilbert, who brought ALFIE to life, is a man without a movie, drowning in a completely tasteless and witless script.

Review: This overblown, overlong epic, adapted from Harold Robbins' best-selling novel that describes every corrupt person who counts in South America, wallows in human depravity. The film wanders after the life and times of a South American playboy, played by Feh… (more)